 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Modiano | ||||
 "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation." | ||||
| Date |
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| Location | Stockholm, Sweden | |||
| Presented by | Swedish Academy | |||
| First award | 1901 | |||
| Website | Official website | |||
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The2014Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French novelistPatrick Modiano (born 1945) "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation."[1] He became the 15th Frenchman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature afterJ. M. G. Le Clézio in 2008.[2]
Patrick Modiano's stories are often characterized by their exploration of universal but difficult questions, at the same time as they are grounded in everyday settings and historical events like inLa Place de l'Étoile ("The Place of the Star", 1968). His works center around subjects like memory, oblivion, identity, and guilt as inRue des Boutiques Obscures ("Missing Person", 1978) andDora Bruder (1997). The city ofParis plays a central role in his writing –Accident nocturne ("Paris Nocturne", 2003), and his stories are often based on events that occurred during the German occupation of France duringWorld War II. At times, Modiano's stories are based on his own experience or on interviews, newspaper articles, or his own notes. Among his other famous literary works includeUn cirque passe ("After the Circus", 1992),Quartier Perdu ("A Trace of Malice", 1984), andL'Herbe des nuits ("The Black Notebook", 2012).[3][2]
For 2014, TheNobel committee of theSwedish Academy received 210 nominations, 36 of which were nominated for the first time.[4]Ladbrokes favourites to win the prize were Kenyan writerNgũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Japanese novelistHaruki Murakami and Belarussian journalistSvetlana Alexievich (awarded in2015).[4]
Called "aMarcel Proust of our time",[5] Modiano heard the news via a mobile phone call from his daughter while walking through Paris, "just next to theJardin du Luxembourg" where he lives.[6] The win was unexpected, even to those in the Anglo-American world most familiar with his work.[7][8] The puzzlement was likely related to limited knowledge of Modiano in the English-speaking world; despite his prolific output, fewer than a dozen of his works had been translated into English, and several of those were out of print before the academy's announcement. The award-winningMissing Person had sold just 2,425 copies in the US prior to the Nobel.[5] EvenPeter Englund, the permanent secretary of theSwedish Academy, noted that many people outside France would likely be unfamiliar with Modiano and his work. "He is well-known in France, but not anywhere else," he said in a post-announcement interview.[9]Yale University Press quickly published three of his novels in English.
Patrick Modiano delivered hisNobel lecture on 7 December 2014 at theSwedish Academy. In it he spoke about his own writing and influential literature of the past. Modiano expressed concernes about the future of literature in a present day world of internet, mobile phones and social media, but concluded "I will remain optimistic about the future of literature and I am convinced that the writers of the future will safeguard the succession just as every generation has done since Homer…"[10]
At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 2014,Jesper Svenbro of the Swedish Academy said:
In novel upon novel Modiano has developed his ability to use almost non-existent documentation – old telephone numbers, street addresses – to endow the past with entrancing life and his Parisian cityscape with a singular voice. Magnificently, his work instantiates what an earlier Nobel Laureate,Seamus Heaney, called “the poetry of place”.[11]
